I was on a mission to hunt for Big Prawn Mee stalls outside of the Jalan Besar/Beach Road vicinity lately and am glad to report that I managed to find a few on the northern part of Singapore which will be reviewed in the next few posts.
Now I'm feeling very good lately as far my hae mee fix is concerned because I've finally found one hae mee that is worth a rave, finally!!!!
Let's face it - Prawn ...

Jack of all trades kind of hawker stalls are becoming a common phenomenon nowadays. If you want to find stalls that sell just 1 item in food centres, that might equate to you trying to find a needle in a haystack. It is actually quite sad to see how out of sync those 'Master Of 1 Food' type of stalls are with the rest of those japalang stalls in markets nowadays.
You see, food businesses are becoming very competitive ...

Every time I have a Cantonese meal, I would remember the days when I was abroad. In foreign land, the food that you grew up eating can be hard to come by and one would naturally look for the closest thing to flavours one missed the most and for me, Cantonese food come the closest.
Unfortunately, when I came back, I realised that authentic Hong Kong flavors are something one will be really hard-pressed to find in Singapore. Apparently, the ...

Have you ever wondered what does it take to create a bowl of mee pok tah that is second to none? I must confess that the vigorous attempt by Ah Guan Mee Pok Pte Ltd quite wow me with their $7 bowl which has ingredients like scallops and crayfish but the shiokness there somehow didn't quite hit the potential for me because boiled seafoods are not shiok enough.
So what can come to the rescue?
Lam’s Abalone Soup is ...

Everyone knows that Chicken rice and Chilli Crab are Singapore's national dishes but do you know what is Vietnamese's national dish?
Vietnamese Pho Noodle (image via)
For the uninitiated, Pho aka beef noodle soup is widely regarded by Vietnamese as their national food and it has been around for more than 100 years. Pho(pronounced as 'phir') is actually a fusion food between the Chinese and the French with the flavour of ...

If you asked me where was the best noodles I have had in Singapore, I will say it was at Crystal Jade. Distinctly like what you can get from any wanton mee stall in Hong Kong, it got that little springy, chewy yet slippery texture with that translucent look that can be so delirious to slurp. I am not sure here, but I'm guessing that Crystal Jade's noodles could be due to the handmade outcome or perhaps the effect of ...

People in different countries don't greet people the same way. It range from the simple universal "Hello!" to American's 'Howdy?" to British's "What's up?" to Aussie's "Good day!" to Singaporeans' "Jiak Pa Buay?"(Eat already or not?!). Singaporeans are so passionate about their food that the first thing they want to know about their friends is whether they have eaten their meals, but have you wondered why are we so passionate about food?
There have been many discussions about this and ...

Fei Lao Seafood may sound new to you but it is a household name at Bedok area for hor fun with a ferocious 'breath of the wok' or what is famously known as the wok hei in cantonese. Somehow it's here where the spirit of the fire can be unlocked to impart that nice smoky sublime flavour from the wok to the hor fun which lingers over the opeh leaf.
Well, for those who are interested to read more on ...

It is not surprising to see opeh leaf hor fun being disguised by pretentious facades at some cze char outlets but then the novelty of it is not just a matter of putting fried hor fun on a piece of opeh leaf. The niceties of an opeh leaf hor fun must include the inconspicuous wok hei with plenty of delicious seafood(king prawns and cucumber) while the gravy must do a good job in blending the flavour and the taste to ...

The construction of what will be a very tok kong(fantastic) hor fun is, as I've mentioned many times before, the ingredients used( good seafood), tasty gravy and good wok hei. For those who are unclear, wok hei here is referring to the charred surface that appears on the hor fun which will provide every mouthful of it with a little 'grilled' aroma similar to what you get in satays or steaks. It's just that little bit of charred(not a lot) ...

I've lately been brought to the attention of several Cze Char stalls that have opeh leaf hor fun in their menus. After eating at these stalls, I have to say that the flavours seem to be very different in most of the stalls though they all are quite authentic in their own ways.
Basically, the one that I grew up eating(Fei Lao), is my gold standard opeh leaf hor fun. It's the combination of the ingredients used, the bud-titillating ...

There is one question that is always on my mind: Why can't the normal $3 horfun which you can find in any kopitiams have a good wok hei on them? Why must wok hei and opeh leaf go hand in hand?
For those who don't know, in the good ole days, hor fun with the wok hei was as common as prawns in your prawn noodles soup today. Back then, if you were having hor fun for dinner, the smell ...

There is a game in Malaysia called 'Tarik Upih'. Can you guess how to play this game?
Tarik Upih Game
'Upih' here is the opeh leaf which we are using for our hokkien mee and hor fun but it is also used by Malaysians(in kampongs) to play a simple game where a team which consists of a person seating on the leaf-sheath and another person pulling the leaf, races with others to the finishing line. Anyway, it just amazes ...

Hor Fun, while can be commonly found in kopitiams; the tok kong(extraordinary) ones are still hard to come by. We can see foods like big prawn noodles or XO hokkien mee in many places but have you wondered, where have all the shiokadodoly tok kong hor fun gone?
Fei Lao Seafood Opeh Leaf Hor Fun $10
History has us believe that the best hor funs are those that can be created with ...

The Teochews are famous for quite a few things. Cultivating the art of preserving food(land infertile so they have to), enjoying seafood's natural taste by steaming it(because they are near to sea so can get fresh ones) and inventing all kinds of kuehs which are the whatever snacks you can find in snack shops like Soon Kueh, Ku Chai Kueh, Png Kueh, Chwee Kueh, Chai Tao Kueh and even Shui Jing Bao and Poh Piah all belong to the Teochew ...

I'll be honest. I seldom eat prawn noodles(soup type) when I'm out. It's not that I'm not a big fan of prawn noodles, but it's hard to find one that's worth my time and money. In fact in most prawn noodles(even the so called good ones) that I know, the prawns they used are quite tasteless after being boiled in the soup for a long long time.
So I'll admit that prawn noodles is one of those food that ...

I dare say that Chomp Chomp Food Centre is one of the better place to eat BBQ stingray, even today. Actually there are not many places in Singapore where people specifically go for stingrays. Some of the places I can think of are East Coast Lagoon, Lau Pa Sat, Newton Hawker Centre. Are there any that I've missed out?
Of course we don't go to Newton Hawker Centre for our seafood, Singaporeans are too smart for that. It's ...

What is the cornerstone of Hainanese Curry Rice?
Well the uniquely sweet gooey curry(or a few kinds of sauces in some cases) is the main attraction of most Hainanese Curry Rice. And how did a piece of pork chop get involved? I don't really know but it's not difficult to imagine our Hainanese ancestors dipping pork cutlets into curries in the ship's galley in the past when they were hungry right?
Conveniently, curry and porkchops became fundamental features of ...

For those who have been following this Hainanese Curry Rice Challenge series, I'm sure you will agree with me that the authenticity of any Hainanese Curry Rice is in the relativity of your taste acquisition and cannot be absolutized.
At the beginning, I was bemoaning the fact that I have been missing out on many fantastic Hainanese Curry Rice around the island but yet it clearly wouldn't had made much difference even if I did find them out earlier.
...

Now that I've eaten a few famous Hainanese Curry Rice around the island for the past 2 weeks, I am beginning to doubt I can find one that can surpass my favourite one at Jalan Besar.
I don't want to rehash what I already shared in the Hainanese Curry Rice Challenge thus far, so I'll try to offer some new insights.
This Hainanese Curry Rice adventure so far has been pretty educational because I get to see what Hainanese ...